disk boot failure...

[Triple Seven]

I woke up this morning to my desktop computer with ALL my work stored on it giving me a blank screen and the message "disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter". Computer cant find the harddrive!! Was working just fine last night... and now this morning nothing... Did a virus get me?? Is all my work lost??

running XP pro... posting this from my laptop.

[Waterboy]

I wasn't clear, did you try booting from the system disk, but it still won't boot?

Unfortunately, disk drives can go quickly sometimes. It doesn't mean all your data is lost. Sometimes it can be retrieved. There are companies that specialize in that. It could also be your HD controller or several other things. It could possibly be because of a virus, but if you are practicing safe computing, it's more likely to be a hardware failure.

[hayabusafiend]

If the hard drive is failing or the OS is damaged, don't waste time troubleshooting it. Instead take your hard drive out and install it in a machine as a slave drive (I'm assuming it's an IDE drive). The machine should be running XP and up-to-date antivirus software.

If you can access your drive, copy the critical data off it.

[Triple Seven]

thanks for the tips.... im attempting to boot from the hd as always with no go. it doesnt look good. i will try to put it in as a slave in another comp after getting one to see if i can retrieve data. i foolishly have been running without anti virus software and had visited some questionable websites security wise last night. which may have compromised the comp. it's not been my day. :) but alas thanks again for the tips.

[deaconblues]

well, yah, surfing about w/o any virus scanner in play is a BIT dangerous...

One other thing you can do is to attempt to fix the Master Boot Record (MBR).

The simplest way to repair or re-create MBR is to run Microsoft's standard utility called FDISK with a parameter /MBR, like

A:\> FDISK.EXE /MBR

FDISK is a standard utility included in MS-DOS, Windows 95, 98, ME.

When FDISK is invoked with the /MBR switch, it COPIES the backup MBR on the drive (which was created when the partitions were set up) back to the one that got damaged.

If you have Windows NT / 2000 / XP, you can boot from startup floppy disks or CD-ROM, choose repair option during setup, and run Recovery Console. When you are logged on, you can run FIXMBR command to fix MBR. It works the same way as FDISK, by restoring the MBR backup.

[Engel-07]

no expert here....but where's your boot system CD or disk? Did you try to re-seed the cables to the HD? - maybe loose cables/pins.

If you don't have another PC to test the HD....How about switching to a blank HD and try to install a new operating system on the blank HD? This is to see if any of your other hardware is the problem or just the HD problem.

Once you resolve the issue, make sure you go out and buy yourself a backup software. - I recommend Symantec Norton Ghost backup software - probably the best personal backup software out there in my opinion. If you look around, you can probably get a good deal for about $20 or less. I backup my system every week or 2 weeks, and it saved my life 3 times already due to corruption in playing games and installing new Microsoft patches and softwares.

Also, I agree with the others...get some kind of security software to protect your PC.

[ChuckBecker]

Originally posted by hayabusafiend
If the hard drive is failing or the OS is damaged, don't waste time troubleshooting it. Instead take your hard drive out and install it in a machine as a slave drive (I'm assuming it's an IDE drive). The machine should be running XP and up-to-date antivirus software.

If you can access your drive, copy the critical data off it.

Exactly! Don't forget to set the jumpers on both old and new drive correctly (master & slave or possibly cable select).